Dessert Recipes

Lemon angel food cake baked from scratch and hollowed out to hold a lemon whipped cream filling set with gelatin. Light, airy, and bright with citrus.

Mississippi mud cake loaded with cocoa, butter, and pecans under a thick chocolate buttercream icing. Dense, fudgy, and unapologetically Southern.

Pashka, a traditional Russian Easter dessert made with cream cheese, butter, egg yolks, crushed pineapple, and toasted almonds. A no-bake molded cheesecake chilled overnight in a clay pot.

Pineapple cream pie with a buttery oil-pastry crust and a no-cook filling whipped from butter, powdered sugar, eggs, and crushed pineapple. A creamy, frothy retro chiller from the icebox era.

Brown sugar pound cake topped with butter-toasted pecan frosting. Tall Bundt with a dense crumb, deep caramel notes, and a nutty browned-butter glaze that drips down the sides.

In a Cretan zacharoplasteion (sweet shop), we were so intrigued by these coconut pastries (among the newer breed) that I tried them at home. You can expect the potato pastry to be a bit difficult to manipulate, and you can also anticipate compliments on the results. Attractive and tasty, not excessively sweet.

Homemade whipped cream beats heavy cream with powdered sugar and vanilla into pillowy soft peaks. Three ingredients, ready in 5 minutes, no canned topping required.

German chocolate pretzel cookies (Schokoladenpretzel) hand-shaped from cocoa dough and topped with cocoa frosting. A fun baking project that makes about 2 dozen pretzel-shaped cookies.

Traditional Norwegian anise syrup cookies made with honey, dark corn syrup, and star anise, finished with a warm powdered sugar glaze. Soft, fragrant, and sweetly spiced. Makes 4 dozen.

Soft sour cream drop cookies with a pillowy, cakey crumb, topped with a thick chocolate frosting made from melted unsweetened chocolate. Chill the dough, bake, and frost. Makes 24.

Starlight double-delight cake, the retro Pillsbury bake-off winner where a chocolate-peppermint cream cheese frosting doubles as part of the batter. Two moist mint-chocolate layers, frosted in the same blend.

Sunshine cake with bright lemon frosting, an airy egg-yolk-and-white sponge baked in a tube pan with lemon zest and extract. Tender, fragrant, finished with a tangy lemon glaze.

Thumbprint snowball cookies with walnuts, cinnamon, and lemon zest in the dough, filled with raspberry jam and dusted with powdered sugar. A festive holiday cookie.

Truffle cookies with a frozen chocolate ganache center wrapped in chocolate cookie dough, baked and dipped in chocolate icing. Three layers of chocolate in every bite.

Velvet devil's food layer cake with coffee and cocoa for deep chocolate flavor, plus a silky coffee buttercream frosting. A bakery-style two-layer showstopper (Part 1).

Buttery walnut cookies made with toasted ground walnuts, piped and baked low and slow until pale golden, then dusted with powdered sugar. Tender, crumbly, and freezer-friendly.